


These are the Places, They are the People

by DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee



Category: Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: ALL THE FLUFF, Avocado Family, Avocados at Law, Families of Choice, Fluff, Found Family, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Human Disaster Matt Murdock, Male-Female Friendship, Matt Murdock & Foggy Nelson Friendship, Not Season/Series 02 Compliant, Office Shenanigans, but in a funny way
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 03:25:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6736135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee/pseuds/DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What Matt Murdock does when he's not fighting criminals.  </p>
<p>Or, the workplace shenanigans of Nelson & Murdock (and Page!).  Featuring rubber ducks, plastic dinosaurs, a cantankerous heater and the peons of the underworld.  </p>
<p>(A series of fluffy, interconnected ficlets that completely disregard season 2 and any and all attendant angst therein)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. All Fired Up

**Author's Note:**

> This fic operates on the premise that Matt fessed up to Karen about being Daredevil and that his nighttime hobbies are common office knowledge.   
> It also completely ignores season 2 because who needs angst? I don't. No angst here, just fluffy, fluffy, fluff.

**All Fired Up**

"Guys," Foggy said very seriously, "none of us would make it on The Apprentice."

"Honestly, Foggy, I'm more concerned about us making it in this office, I am _freezing_ ," Karen huddled in her jacket, puffing into her hands and rubbing them together, "I don't get how Matt can just sit there like it's not below freezing in here."

"Oh, yeah, he's meditating the cold away. Apparently he can drive out physical discomfort with the power of zen. I'm supposed to make sure he's breathing every few minutes or so. We did this a lot when the heat broke in our apartment at school."

"Uh-huh."

"So! Crap tv to chase away the cold?"

"Sure, why not?"

The Apprentice rerun playing on their tiny little office tv cut to a commercial break just before Trump revealed who was fired.

"So?" Karen asked, "why wouldn't we make it on Trump's lame tv show?"

"Ah, because, my dear Karen," Foggy cleared his throat dramatically and said in his best Trump voice, "Page, you're too female, you're fired. Murdock, you're too disabled, you're fired. Nelson, you are perfect in every way except you fail to live up to your status as a white male with a law degree. I'm very disappointed in you for voting Democrat in the last election. You're fired." Foggy grinned at her, "I figure either you or I would throw our complementary bland, rich person soda water in his face and call him 'capitalist swine' before marching off into the sunset."

"That would be you, Foggy," Matt muttered, not bothering to crack an eyelid open, still half-meditating, "Karen would go for the coffee for beverage-flinging. Hot drinks burn more."

Karen grinned like a shark, uncurling from her ‘oh-god-it’s-cold-gotta-hold-in-the-body-heat’ pose to wave her coffee mug menacingly in Foggy’s direction until he yelped in mock fear and dramatically tried to flee towards Matt, who had deigned to come out of his meditative state to snicker at his friends’ shenanigans.

"Daredevil, help! I feel imperiled!" Foggy yelped, ducking behind Matt’s chair, Karen cackling behind him.

“Hmm,” Matt mused faux-contemplatively, “You should sue. I know a good lawyer.”

“Really, now?”

“Oh yes, he’s blind and _very_ charming.”

            Foggy whacked him in the shoulder, lightly, in case of healing bruises. “Should have let Karen douse you with her coffee.”

            “Wasn’t that why you were hiding behind me in the first place?”

            Karen snorted, “Well no one’s getting doused with anything now; it’s still cold in here and I want my hot beverage.”

            “You, Matt, are a terrible human shield.”

            “Hey, I made her cease and desist her threatening behavior; I think I’m doing well.”

            “Boys, the commercial break is over.” Karen interrupted before their playful squabbling could escalate.

            “Great, now we get to see what poor sap Trump fires.” Foggy said, leaning against the back of Matt’s desk chair.

            “Well…” Matt said, making an ambivalent hand gesture.

            “ _No_ , no blind jokes!”

            “ _Guys,_ quit it until Trump finally spits out who’s fired.”

            “Fine, but we’re listening to _American Idol_ after this.”

            “Okay, okay, Matt.”


	2. Duck-Duck-Goose

**Duck-Duck-Goose**

            It started as a joke. Well. Actually it started with Foggy putting his foot in his mouth more times in one conversation than he ever thought possible. But. It also kind of started as a joke.

            “You got me…a rubber duck?” Matt Murdock, eighteen and broke, ran his fingers over the gift his roommate, also eighteen and equally broke, had handed him.

            “Yeah, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Y’know, a reference to the whole ‘handsome wounded duck’ thing, but in hindsight – shut up, you – it does seem kind of lame and weird…”

            Matt squished the ducky experimentally with his fingers and positively _beamed_ when it let out a cute little squeak. “It’s _perfect_.”

            “Yeah, well,” Foggy huffed, embarrassed, “I know it’s kind of cheap and lame.”

            “No,” Matt insisted, hands dancing over the smooth rubber surface, “It’s perfect.” He squished it again, grinning, looking almost surprised, as if he irrationally hadn’t expected it to still do that. He turned his grin in Foggy’s general direction and it was like the sun.

            “ _Thank you_ ,” he said and there shouldn’t have been so much weight in those words, but there was.

            “Yeah, well, happy birthday, buddy.”

            Matt grinned again and went back to investigating his rubber ducky.

…

            It turned into something of a tradition after that. There’d be a holiday or other vaguely gift-giving-centric occasion and Foggy would find a novelty rubber ducky for Matt. He had a different tacky cupid duck for every Valentine’s Day since that first year, a different silly monster duck for every Halloween, several rubber pilgrim ducks and a rubber turkey-ducky Foggy had to special order (not that Matt would ever know that) for Thanksgiving, not to mention the slew of festive ducks he’d accumulated over the course of several Christmases. The birthday ducks were probably Matt’s favorites, though, although every single rubber ducky was special. He could pick each one up and remember every second of the day he got it. Every memory imprinted on the rubber and plastic. But the birthday ducks were each unique; tied to some sort of private joke from the past year. A year lived, documented by a novelty rubber duck.

            He had three graduation ducks. One for undergrad, one for law school, and one final duck bought as a joke after they left Landman and Zack, ‘graduating’ into their own practice, their own lives, their own world.

            And yes, after Daredevil there were _a lot_ of devil duckies.

            A lot.

            “Matt, where did you put the file on the Grayson-Gordon case?” Karen called from Matt’s office.

            Matt’s reply drifted out of the conference room, “In my desk, second drawer down.”

            A beat of silence and then; “Matt? Why is there an army of rubber ducks staring at me? Also, where did they put the Grayson-Gordon case file? Because I need that.”

            “Second drawer down, _right_ side.”

            “Oh,” Karen choked on a laugh, looking down at the legion of little rubber birds staring back up at her with adorable, painted-on eyes (there were places where the paint had worn thin, spots the shape of finger tips tracing the line and angles of each one). She reached over to the correct drawer on the opposite side of the desk and extracted the case file, still eyeing the ducks. “Where did all these come from?”

            “Foggy,” Matt answered simply, “Sort of a joke that escalated.”

            “Well, they’re cute. You should put them up on your windowsill, like Foggy did with his dinosaurs.”

            “Maybe I will.”


	3. Dead Devil Walking

**Dead Devil Walking**

            Matt ran to work. He’d been gone a week, a whole _week_. Karen and Foggy were going to be _pissed._ Getting kidnapped was the _worst._ Damn Jones and the weird stuff she got mixed up in. He’d thought it’d be a slow night, leisurely even. A short patrol with no real trouble, home and in bed before two.

            And then Jones called, asking for a (demanding, calling in, really who was keeping track at this point, they were neck-deep in each other’s problems anyway) a favor and Matt Bleeding Heart Murdock had to go help out.

            And had gotten knocked unconscious and kidnapped for his troubles.

            His only comfort was that they nabbed Jessica too, so he felt a little less like a total failure.

            A day or so in a heady half-conscious daze as they transported the downed heroes out to the middle of fuck-all nowhere (Jessica’s extremely geographically precise term) and…well, dumped them. For a while. Turns out that two-bit thugs don’t really plan much beyond ‘hey, the boss might be kinda down with us acquiring a pair of superfreaks’ ( _their_ moderately offensive term and extremely offensive poor logic).

            So yeah. Semi-conscious. For awhile. Disoriented. For awhile.

            (Turns out concussions and chloroform aren’t super-senses’ best friend.)

            And of course Jessica Jones doesn’t take incarceration, lawful or otherwise, well. And Matt’s not a huge fan of it either. So once the thugs left them to their own devices, they made a break for it – looping back around to beat down the thugs just because Ms. Jessica Jones, licensed badass, and Mr. Matthew Murdock, Esquire, handle negative feelings by inflicting worse feelings on other people. Typically with their fists. Although Matt had been known to kick on occasion. When he’s feeling creative.

            And then there was the arduous process of figuring out where in the fuck (another example of Jessica’s excellent grasp of geographic terminology) they were (upstate, turns out they were upstate). And then there was the trek back.

            Frankly, Matt spent more time in-transit than he did actually Being Kidnapped.

            And now he was back in civilization and it turned out he’d been gone for a week. (Jessica had shrugged when he’d expressed his dismay over this little fact, clearly not sold on why exactly this was an issue for a working professional with Friends Who Worry. Jessica’s Friends Who Worry tended to be much more chill about sporadic disappearances than Matt’s were. Generally speaking.)

            So yeah. Running to work. To an undoubtedly pissed Karen and Foggy.

            This was not going to be fun.

…

            Okay, so he had not anticipated Karen giving a little choked scream upon catching sight of him and proceeding to _beat him with her purse._ Oh god. His head, still tender from the blow to the skull that had landed him in the hands of the peons of the underworld, rang in agonizing protests, little splinters of pain stabbing at his nerve endings as he tried in vain to shield his face.

            “Karen, Karen, KAREN PLEASE STOP, YOU’RE HURTING ME.”

            That, miraculously, got her to drop her purse-weapon. It also caused her to _sniffle_ for some unthinkable reason. Matt stiffened, ready to flee, or offer tissues, or find tissues, or _purchase some fucking tissues because oh god, Karen was crying._

            “Karen,” he reached out to her, awkward and stiff, partially from the patchwork quilt of bruises turning his skin interesting colors, and partially because he was so out of his depth here he wasn’t sure which way was up anymore, “Karen, please don’t cry. Why are you crying, Karen?” his voice went all soft at the end, unwanted sympathetic tears prickling behind his eyes but thankfully not escaping onto his cheeks.

            “We, we – ” Karen took a few sad, sipping breaths of air and that was it, Matt was reaching out to her, pulling her into a gentle hug. She rested her face on his chest and breathed for a moment. “We thought you were – ” another sniffle, “Dead. We saw the explosion, on the news, and heard you’d – well, not _you_ , other you, was on-site, and then we didn’t hear from you, and Claire hadn’t seen you, and Foggy called all the hospitals, hell, he called the cops, he called fucking _morgues_ trying to figure out where you _went_. And – and – and – ” she broke off, “Foggy’s been a mess. I told him to take today off because he’s just been so _distraught_ , wondering what the hell happened to _his best fucking friend_ and,” she sniffled again, “I’m so tired of being strong, Matt. We thought you were _dead_.”

            “Um.” Yes, there was Matt’s Ivy League education at work. “I’m…not dead?” Karen was crying, Foggy was _distraught_? What the hell had he done to his friends?

            Karen smacked him on the chest with a loose fist, “Duh. We just…we were really scared.”

            He hugged her a little tighter. He needed to go find Foggy after this, tell him he was fine, that everything was all right.

            “I’m fine, Karen. Totally fine. I was just a little kidnapped, that’s all.”

            Karen stiffened. Oops. Wrong move? She tensed further. Wrong move. 100% wrong move, Murdock. “ _Kidnapped_? You were _a little kidnapped_?”

            “Jessica was there? We were fine?”

            “We are discussing this. We are getting Foggy and we are getting really, really, drunk and we are _discussing this_.”

            “O-okay.”

            Karen paused as she pulled away, considering. “One more hug; though. Just so I know you’re real.”

            Matt could do one more hug.


	4. Mass Extinction

**Mass Extinction**

            Foggy was in the middle of making some very dramatic sound affects for his triceratops as it plummeted off the table when Karen stuck her head in the conference room.

            “Guys, what are you doing? I thought you were conferring on something. Comparing notes…” Her vague hand gesture neatly encompassed the concept of ‘you know, lawyerly things that grownups with law degrees do; not whatever it is you’re doing now’.

            “Um. We were?” Foggy offered, unconvincingly.

            Matt took this opportunity to weave his devil-duck (the bright red one with the goatee, the one with the pitchfork was still in Jail) through the maze of paper cups to knock another one of Foggy’s dinosaurs off the table.

            “Hey, no cheating!” Foggy protested, “Dinosaurs launch counterattack, Duck goes down in a hail of paperclips!” He then proceeded to dump a box of paperclips over Matt’s devil duck.

            Matt made a noise of protest and Foggy cackled.

           Karen scanned the (admittedly elaborate, if completely baffling) set up for their favorite, completely made up, game: Mass Extinction. “You do realize we have cases, that you could be working on.”

            “We will,” Foggy said, arranging a set of pushpins around one of Matt’s pilgrim ducks (this one holding a cornucopia), “Entrapment, Matt, forfeit,”

            Matt, inexplicably, recited the names of the current Supreme Court Judges and the first five constitutional amendments before scattering the pushpins across the table, yelling “Minefield!”

            Foggy groaned and recited the ten commandments backwards, picking up a pin for each commandment and putting them in the now-empty paperclip box.

            Karen just shook her head and ducked out of the doorway, leaving them to their own devices.

            “We should teach Karen how to play Mass Extinction,” Matt said, “She’d be good at it.”

            Foggy nodded, “We need to get her something weird and collectable, though, so she has pieces to play with.”

            Matt shrugged, “We’ll figure something out. Your pterodactyl is caught embezzling, go to jail.”

            “Pays bribe, gets out early,” Foggy countered.

            “Daredevil.”

            “Does not play Mass Extinction, gimme my pterodactyl.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The game they play - Mass Extinction, is made up. It's modeled on the principle behind the game True American in the show 'New Girl', a game with a bunch of seemingly complex rules that really make no logical sense to anyone but the players.


End file.
